Cauliflower Rice in Ten Minutes

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Cauliflower blitzed into grains and fried with onion and cumin, finished with lime. Ten minutes, no grain and no pasta, and the trick is keeping it dry enough to stay separate. Serves four.

Prep Time2

Cook Time8

Total Time10

Course: Side Dish

Cuisine: Colombian

Keyword: Cauliflower rice

Servings:

Calories: 112kcal

Author: Angela Giraldo

Ingredients

1 cauliflower a medium head gives about four servings
2 tablespoons oil
1 onion, finely chopped
Cumin, to taste
Salt and black pepper, to taste salt draws water out, so add it at the end
Juice of ½ lemon off the heat, at the end

Instructions

Wash the cauliflower well.
Cut off the base and the leaves and break the head into florets, keeping the tops and discarding the thick stems.
Put them in a food processor and pulse until the cauliflower looks like grains of rice. Without a processor, a coarse grater does the same job.
Chop the onion finely.
Heat the oil in a pan over medium-high heat and cook the onion for about 3 minutes, until it softens.
Add the cumin and the pepper, and a little more oil if the pan looks dry.
Add the cauliflower and stir. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
Cook for another 4 or 5 minutes, stirring often and leaving the pan uncovered so the water evaporates, until the cauliflower is done but still has some bite.
Serve hot or warm, with chopped parsley or cilantro and the lemon juice over the top.

Notes

Cauliflower is mostly water and the whole difficulty of this dish is getting rid of it. Keep the pan uncovered, keep the heat up, and stir often: covered or crowded, the cauliflower steams in its own liquid and collapses into something closer to mash. Salt at the end rather than the beginning, because salt draws water out. Five minutes is enough, and cauliflower rice cooked until completely soft has lost the point. A food processor pulsed in short bursts gives a better texture than one run continuously, which turns the bottom to paste before the top is grated.

Nutrition